How Breathing Changed My Pregnancy
Core training was a very confusing thing during my first pregnancy. I wasn’t sure what exercises I could do or how to modify them. Thankfully I learned, now it is more important than ever to learn how to activate all my core muscles.
Key takeaways
A strong, stable core in pregnancy supports your spine and your pelvis
A strong core minimize abdominal separation, improve pelvic floor strength and help injury proof the surrounding joints
Diaphragmatic breathing is the key “exercise” to activating all core muscles
Why breathing supports your pelvic floor
The way you breathe impacts you physically but psychologically as well. Your breathing can change your mood. Your breathing can also change the pressure through the pelvic floor.
How do you breathe? 😮💨
Yes, there are really different ways of breathing but most of us don‘t even think about it, as it happens unconsciously. Swipe to see the difference.
Let‘s test it! 🫁
Lay down on the flat surface, one hand on your belly, one on your chest. Close your eyes and take 5-7 big breaths. Is your chest rising or your belly?
The three ways of breathing
Chest breathing
If your chest came up, don’t worry chest breathing is what most of us do unconsciously. But we are missing out on pelvic floor pressure, so we don’t want to practice this during pregnancy and postpartum.
Belly breathing vs. diaphragmatic breathing
If your belly came up, you most likely did belly breathing. This is where I started, until I learned, just belly breathing means pushing the belly outward which increases the pressure on the abdominal wall and the pelvic floor and can actually worsen separation of the abdominal muscles (diastasis recti). What we want to do is diaphragmatic breathing. I also call it 360 diaphragmatic breathing, you will see in a second why.
How to do 360 diaphragmatic breathing
Lay down and try to get your pelvis in the same line as your ribs
Now, let’s imagine there is a corset around your midline
Relax your pelvis floor
On the inhale expand the corset, filling the lower ribs, lower back and belly with air - 360 degrees around you
On the exhale gently lift your pelvic floor up (think of “squeeze”)
Conclusion
Diaphragmatic Breathing is the one we will use in order to make our core strong and build a well functioning pelvic floor. It reduces the severity of diastasis recti and pelvic floor dysfunction in pregnancy. This is also the first step in reconnecting your core and pelvic floor postpartum. 💪